Olivetti M20
   HOME
*





Olivetti M20
The Olivetti M20 is a Zilog Z8000 based computer designed and released by Olivetti in 1982. Although it offered good performance, it suffered from a lack of software due to its use of the Z8000 processor and custom operating system, PCOS. The company introduced the IBM PC compatible Olivetti M24 in 1983 and the M20 line was phased out. History System design began in 1979 in Cupertino, California at Olivetti's Advanced Technology Center. When announced on March 31, 1982, it was probably the first 16-bit personal computer in Europe with an expected price range of US$3,000-6,000. ''InfoWorld'' magazine saw the M20 as an "answer to Tandy's Model 16, the IBM Personal Computer and the Apple III"; Olivetti itself compared its computer to the IBM PC, Sirius Victor, Commodore 8000 and Apple II in television advertising. Although the computer was initially well received, its use of a non-standard OS (Olivetti's proprietary PCOS) and CPU (Zilog Z8001) proved to be its most serious limit ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


PC Olivetti M20 - Front
PC or pc may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Player character or playable character, a fictional character controlled by a human player, usually in role-playing games or computer games * ''Port Charles'', an American daytime TV soap opera * Production code number, a designation used to identify television episodes * ''Pretty Cure'', a Japanese anime franchise Business and finance * Percentage (pc), numeric ratio signifier * Prime cost or variable cost * Principal Consultant, a management consulting position * Professional corporation, a type of corporate entity for licensed professionals (attorneys, architects, physicians, engineers, etc.) Organizations Businesses * Pearl-Continental Hotels & Resorts, a hotel chain in Pakistan * Pirelli & C. (stock symbol: PC) * President's Choice, a private label product brand of the Canadian supermarket chain Loblaw Companies ** PC Mobile, a Canadian mobile virtual network operator ** PC Optimum, a Canadian rewards program ** President' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


SuperCalc
SuperCalc is a CP/M-80 spreadsheet application published by Sorcim in 1980. History VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet program but its release for the CP/M operating system ran only on the HP-125, Sharp MZ80, and the Sony SMC-70. SuperCalc was created to fill that void and market opportunity. Alongside WordStar, it was one of the CP/M applications bundled with the Osborne 1 portable computer. It quickly became popular and was ported to MS-DOS in 1982. An improvement over VisiCalc (though using much the same command structure using the slash key), SuperCalc was one of the first spreadsheet programs capable of iteratively solving circular references (cells that depend on each other's results). It would be over 10 years after the introduction of SuperCalc before this feature was implemented in Microsoft Excel, although in Lotus 1-2-3, manual programming of iterative logic could also be used to solve this issue. According to the SuperCalc product manager, iterative calculations wer ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Corvus Systems
Corvus Systems was a computer technology company that offered, at various points in its history, computer hardware, software, and complete PC systems. History ''Corvus'' was founded by Michael D'Addio and Mark Hahn in 1979. This San Jose, Silicon Valley company pioneered in the early days of personal computers, producing the first hard disk drives, data backup, and networking devices, commonly for the Apple II series. The combination of disk storage, backup, and networking was very popular in Primary education, primary and secondary education. A classroom would have a single drive and backup with a full classroom of Apple II computers networked together. Students would log in each time they use the computer and access their work via the ''Corvus Omninet'' network, which also supported eMail. They went public in 1981 and were traded on the NASDAQ exchange. In 1985 ''Corvus'' acquired a company named ''Onyx & IMI''. IMI (International Memories Incorporated) manufactured the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Disk Controller
{{unreferenced, date=May 2010 The disk controller is the controller circuit which enables the CPU to communicate with a hard disk, floppy disk or other kind of disk drive. It also provides an interface between the disk drive and the bus connecting it to the rest of the system. Early disk controllers were identified by their storage methods and data encoding. They were typically implemented on a separate controller card. Modified frequency modulation (MFM) controllers were the most common type in small computers, used for both floppy disk and hard disk drives. Run length limited (RLL) controllers used data compression to increase storage capacity by about 50%. Priam created a proprietary storage algorithm that could double the disk storage. Shugart Associates Systems Interface ( SASI) was a predecessor to SCSI. Modern disk controllers are integrated into the disk drive as peripheral controllers. For example, disks called "SCSI disks" have built-in SCSI controllers. In the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Hard Disk Drive
A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnetic material. The platters are paired with magnetic heads, usually arranged on a moving actuator arm, which read and write data to the platter surfaces. Data is accessed in a random-access manner, meaning that individual blocks of data can be stored and retrieved in any order. HDDs are a type of non-volatile storage, retaining stored data when powered off. Modern HDDs are typically in the form of a small rectangular box. Introduced by IBM in 1956, HDDs were the dominant secondary storage device for general-purpose computers beginning in the early 1960s. HDDs maintained this position into the modern era of servers and personal computers, though personal computing devices produced in large volume, like cell phones and tablets, rely on ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Floppy Disk
A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a fabric that removes dust particles from the spinning disk. Floppy disks store digital data which can be read and written when the disk is inserted into a floppy disk drive (FDD) connected to or inside a computer or other device. The first floppy disks, invented and made by IBM, had a disk diameter of . Subsequently, the 5¼-inch and then the 3½-inch became a ubiquitous form of data storage and transfer into the first years of the 21st century. 3½-inch floppy disks can still be used with an external USB floppy disk drive. USB drives for 5¼-inch, 8-inch, and other-size floppy disks are rare to non-existent. Some individuals and organizations continue to use older equipment to read or transfer data from floppy disks. Floppy disk ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

RS-232
In telecommunications, RS-232 or Recommended Standard 232 is a standard originally introduced in 1960 for serial communication transmission of data. It formally defines signals connecting between a ''DTE'' (''data terminal equipment'') such as a computer terminal, and a ''DCE'' (''data circuit-terminating equipment'' or ''data communication equipment''), such as a modem. The standard defines the electrical characteristics and timing of signals, the meaning of signals, and the physical size and pinout of connectors. The current version of the standard is ''TIA-232-F Interface Between Data Terminal Equipment and Data Circuit-Terminating Equipment Employing Serial Binary Data Interchange'', issued in 1997. The RS-232 standard had been commonly used in computer serial ports and is still widely used in industrial communication devices. A serial port complying with the RS-232 standard was once a standard feature of many types of computers. Personal computers used them for connection ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Serial Port
In computing, a serial port is a serial communication interface through which information transfers in or out sequentially one bit at a time. This is in contrast to a parallel port, which communicates multiple bits simultaneously in parallel. Throughout most of the history of personal computers, data has been transferred through serial ports to devices such as modems, terminals, various peripherals, and directly between computers. While interfaces such as Ethernet, FireWire, and USB also send data as a serial stream, the term ''serial port'' usually denotes hardware compliant with RS-232 or a related standard, such as RS-485 or RS-422. Modern consumer personal computers (PCs) have largely replaced serial ports with higher-speed standards, primarily USB. However, serial ports are still frequently used in applications demanding simple, low-speed interfaces, such as industrial automation systems, scientific instruments, point of sale systems and some industrial and consumer ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

IEEE-488
IEEE 488 is a short-range digital communications 8-bit parallel multi-master interface bus specification developed by Hewlett-Packard as HP-IB (Hewlett-Packard Interface Bus). It subsequently became the subject of several standards, and is generically known as GPIB (General Purpose Interface Bus). Although the bus was created in the late 1960s to connect together automated test equipment, it also had some success during the 1970s and 1980s as a peripheral bus for early microcomputers, notably the Commodore PET. Newer standards have largely replaced IEEE 488 for computer use, but it is still used by some test equipment. Origins In the late 1960s, Hewlett-Packard (HP) manufactured various automated test and measurement instruments, such as digital multimeters and logic analyzers. They developed the ''HP Interface Bus (HP-IB)'' to enable easier interconnection between instruments and controllers (computers and other instruments). The bus was relatively easy to implemen ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Parallel Port
In computing, a parallel port is a type of interface found on early computers (personal and otherwise) for connecting peripherals. The name refers to the way the data is sent; parallel ports send multiple bits of data at once ( parallel communication), as opposed to serial communication, in which bits are sent one at a time. To do this, parallel ports require multiple data lines in their cables and port connectors and tend to be larger than contemporary serial ports, which only require one data line. There are many types of parallel ports, but the term has become most closely associated with the printer port or Centronics port found on most personal computers from the 1970s through the 2000s. It was an industry ''de facto'' standard for many years, and was finally standardized as IEEE 1284 in the late 1990s, which defined the Enhanced Parallel Port (EPP) and Extended Capability Port (ECP) bi-directional versions. Today, the parallel port interface is virtually non-exis ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

M20 Mb Cpu
M, or m, is the thirteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''em'' (pronounced ), plural ''ems''. History The letter M is derived from the Phoenician Mem, via the Greek Mu (Μ, μ). Semitic Mem is most likely derived from a " Proto-Sinaitic" (Bronze Age) adoption of the "water" ideogram in Egyptian writing. The Egyptian sign had the acrophonic value , from the Egyptian word for "water", ''nt''; the adoption as the Semitic letter for was presumably also on acrophonic grounds, from the Semitic word for "water", '' *mā(y)-''. Use in writing systems The letter represents the bilabial nasal consonant sound in the orthography of Latin as well as in that of many modern languages, and also in the International Phonetic Alphabet. In English, the Oxford English Dictionary (first edition) says that is sometimes a vowel, in words like ' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

M20 Mb
M, or m, is the thirteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''em'' (pronounced ), plural ''ems''. History The letter M is derived from the Phoenician Mem, via the Greek Mu (Μ, μ). Semitic Mem is most likely derived from a " Proto-Sinaitic" (Bronze Age) adoption of the "water" ideogram in Egyptian writing. The Egyptian sign had the acrophonic value , from the Egyptian word for "water", ''nt''; the adoption as the Semitic letter for was presumably also on acrophonic grounds, from the Semitic word for "water", '' *mā(y)-''. Use in writing systems The letter represents the bilabial nasal consonant sound in the orthography of Latin as well as in that of many modern languages, and also in the International Phonetic Alphabet. In English, the Oxford English Dictionary (first edition) says that is sometimes a vowel, in words like ' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]